The Bumpy Road From a Well‐Paid Earmarked Parental Leave to Engaged Fatherhood: Externally Driven Reform in a Persistently Gendered Culture

ABSTRACT Well‐paid, nontransferable parental leave for fathers is intended to promote engaged fatherhood and, in turn, gender equality at work and in the household. Yet the extent to which such entitlements achieve these outcomes depends on the cultural and institutional context in which they are introduced. This study investigates how fathers interpret the uptake and nonuptake of the newly introduced father quota in an unprecedented context: a country with persistently gendered norms, where the reform was externally driven by the EU Work–Life Balance Directive and only weakly supported by implementing authorities. Drawing on 30 semi‐structured interviews with Polish fathers of children aged 6–36 months, we show that both nontakers and father quota users position themselves primarily as workers and only secondarily as caring fathers. Although the former argue that they do not need parental leave because they already spend enough time with their children, even while working full‐time, father quota users often use the entitlement less for childcare and more to step back from demanding jobs, change employment, travel, or extend family time. Our findings reveal the limits of externally imposed reforms in transforming entrenched gender norms and highlight how formal rights may not only fail to advance gender equality but also risk reinforcing gendered divisions of roles. The study contributes to debates on fatherhood and work by demonstrating how leave policies in gender‐traditional contexts can be appropriated in ways that undermine their intended goals, underscoring the need for more comprehensive and radical policy reforms.